The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 72: Dripping Blood

🔹 THORNE

She would not let me carry her.

She walked ahead of us. The rescued Vargans moved alongside her—in front of all of us, as though she were their shield rather than their savior.

Althea had positioned herself at the head of the procession, limping but utterly unaware. Her body registered what her mind refused to acknowledge—the way she favored her right side, the slight hitch in her stride, the tremor in her shoulders that had nothing to do with cold.

Her steps were light yet heavy all at once, carrying the still-crying child with such ease you’d think she bore nothing at all.

I walked a few safe paces behind, watching.

There was a distant respect forming—reluctant, unwilling, inconvenient. She’d proven herself more than the broken omega I’d assumed. More than Morgana’s discarded daughter.

But respect didn’t change facts.

She was still my captive. Still the child of the woman who’d ripped my world apart. Still a complication I hadn’t asked for and didn’t want.

The mate bond pulled at my ribs, insistent and maddening, demanding I close the distance between us. Demanding I protect her.

I hated it.

Hated the dilemma weighing on my heart like a stone. Hated that the path forward—once so clear, so simple—had fractured into a thousand jagged possibilities, none of them clean.

Revenge had been easy.

This was not.

---

By the time we reached the fortress, dawn was bleeding across the horizon. Pale gray light filtered through the trees, casting long shadows across the courtyard.

The clan was waiting.

Dozens of them, they all shifted back, taking their usual form, their eyes tracking our approach with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

They’d all see what happened at the border. Just like me, they all saw her in a new, confusing light.

Althea stopped at the edge of the courtyard, swaying slightly. Thal had gone quiet in her arms, his sobs reduced to shuddering breaths.

The clan stared.

At her. At the Vargans. At the blood staining everyone’s clothes.

At the Silvermoth.

I moved past her, gesturing for the Vargans to follow. "Get them inside. Food. Water. Healers."

The clan obeyed, though their eyes never left Althea.

She stood frozen, unmoving, her face streaked with tears and dirt and exhaustion so profound it looked like she might collapse at any moment.

Then she lifted her hand to her face and wiped her eyes.

The tears came away on her fingers, glistening in the early light.

She looked down at Thal, still clinging to her, and gently shifted him so she could see his back. The torn, bloodied fabric. The ragged cuts left by Morgana’s gamma.

Without a word, she pressed her wet fingers to the wounds.

The clan went silent.

I watched, unable to look away, as the boy’s torn flesh began to move. The edges of the cuts pulled together. The jagged, ravaged skin knit itself closed, the color shifting from deathly pale to healthy flush.

Within seconds, the wounds were gone.

Thal gasped, his small hand reaching back to touch smooth, unbroken skin.

Murmurs rippled through the clan.

What is she?

I didn’t have an answer.

She could walk through the Red Mist unscathed.

She could survive my Sight—something that had driven others mad.

And now this.

Her tears could heal.

What the hell was this woman?

Not just Morgana’s daughter.

Not just the Silvermoth.

She was something else. Something I didn’t understand.

Something that terrified me more than I wanted to admit.

Althea set Thal down gently, her hands trembling. The boy looked up at her, wide-eyed and stunned, his back now unmarked, healed.

Then she bent to lift him again.

Her legs buckled.

She caught herself against a wooden post, breathing hard, and I took a step forward—

"Don’t." Her voice was sharp as broken glass. "Don’t touch me."

I stopped.

She straightened, visibly forcing strength into her limbs that weren’t there. Her hands reached for Thal again, trying to pull him back into her arms.

"Althy," the boy whispered, uncertain. "You don’t have to—"

"I’m fine." The words came out too fast. Too brittle.

She lifted him. Barely. Her arms shook with the effort.

Then she took a step.

Swayed.

Caught herself.

Another step.

I saw it then—the first trickle of blood, dark against her honeyed skin, sliding down the inside of her thigh.

My heart stuttered painfully in my chest. I took a cautious step toward her unstable form. I bit my tongue hard—I wanted to yell at her because she was being too stubborn. She needed help yet—

She didn’t stop.

Didn’t acknowledge it.

Just kept walking, one agonizing step after another, her jaw set with stubborn, self-destructive determination.

The trickle became a stream.

The clan watched in frozen horror as crimson began to pool at her feet with every step. Droplets became spatters. Spatters became stains spreading across the courtyard stones.

"Althea—" My voice had grown pathetically soft, placating, edged with desperation now. But she went through so much in one day, and refused whatever brand of comfort that I could offer. "You need to—"

"Stay back." I wish she had snapped, I wished she had spat the words at me at least that would tell me that she would be okay. But her voice had lost its edge. It was fading. Thin and thready like her pulse must be.

Another step.

Her knees wobbled.

Thal whimpered in her arms, sensing something wrong, trying to wriggle free. "Althy, you’re—"

"I’m fine—"

She wasn’t.

The blood was pouring now, a steady stream that painted her legs, her feet, the ground beneath her in glistening red.

Her face had gone paper-white, lips bloodless. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused.

One more step.

She swayed violently, overcorrected, stumbled—

And fell.

I caught her before she hit the stones, Thal tumbling from her arms into the hands of a Vargan woman who’d rushed forward.

Althea’s weight collapsed into me, boneless and terrifyingly light.

The blood—gods, the blood—soaked through my clothes, warm and slick.

"DELTAS!" My voice cracked, raw with something I couldn’t name. "GET THE HEALERS NOW!"

Her eyes fluttered open, barely focusing.

"Thorne," she breathed. "It hurts. Why does it..." One soft gasp. "hurt?"

Then they closed.